100 Days

There's a Stargate SG-1 episode by that name, when O'Neill is stranded on a planet after the stargate is buried in an explosion. Based on the movie character, you would expect him to commit suicide, and he considers it. But a widow explains that after she lost her husband, she wanted to die at first, but slowly, by the 100th day, she was ready to at least try to live again.

Since December, I haven't seen much of the cats. We came together for meals, yes, and playtime, but afterwards, each went to a separate corner of the house and slept or stared out a window or did whatever they were doing when they weren't fighting over me. My narrow bed contained only me.

I thought this is what it will be like now. These aren't my snugglers. These aren't my people-oriented furbabies. Those are gone. We're going to share space in this house until, you know, The End.

In the last 10 days or so, the cats have returned to old patterns. Skamper has resumed sleeping in my lap during the day (he just joined me at the computer and is lying between my arms as I type). Skuttle is torn between GloveLove and being stand-offish. Miss Kitty is chasing anyone who will run.

I counted. Today is the 110th day since Simon journeyed to Aslan's Country. They must have been watching that episode with me and decided we've mourned long enough. Time to resume at least trying to live again.

I hear you, kiddos. Begin next chapter.

Push button. Receive bacon.

Empty Explanations

It's grown very quiet in the Turtle household. Caleb was my main talker, with an astounding variety of chirps, trills, squeaks, and yowls as running commentary. Sweetie panted all the time (thanks to her advancing years and thickening of heart and lungs) and occasionally barked at a rabbit outside. Simon complained about stuff. Toffee made all kinds of weird noises.

More than once, I considered making a recording of the sounds of the Turtle household. Not sure if I'm glad I didn't.

The remaining three only open their mouths to complain about lack of food. I should be happy about that.

Simon died of intestinal cancer. I'd known something was wrong with him since July. It just took that long to manifest. Sweetie died of lymphoma. She'd been getting weaker for a while, especially in her back legs, so when I felt the lumps in her throat, I knew. The last days were sudden, but the result was expected.

Caleb came out of left field. It now seems he was dead when I took him to the emergency vet that Saturday; we just didn't know it. The treatment that should have worked to flush out the toxins in his kidneys and restored him to stable health and maintenance didn't work on him. The vet suspects cancer was at the root. He was eight, and I'd planned a longer life together. He is the one I'm having the hardest time not being bitter about.

Toffee was my fault. I killed her because I couldn't live with her grief, and I couldn't find a solution for it after seventeen days. She was fifteen, stopped eating in October, and had to be coaxed back. She got better while Simon got worse. After Simon died, she started screaming at night as only a Siamese can scream, for hours at a time, with no obvious trigger or solution. My only weak defense is I truly thought that something physical was wrong with her, something that would take a while to find, like it did with Simon. Something terminal. Maybe I was right, but I'll never know, because she's dead.

I have never believed in killing an animal for convenience, any more than I believe in killing babies for convenience, and I regret the decision hourly. She's having her revenge, though, because she's haunting me. I see her at the table waiting to lick my breakfast bowl. Peering around the door into the kitchen. Sleeping near me or in my chair when I get up. Blinking at me from behind the curtain as I open it for the day. After twelve years of living here, her absence has riddled this house with holes.

I remember when she came, she stayed in the basement, terrified. She'd been traumatized by a Lhasa Apso in a foster home between living with mom and living with me. I knew I could either have a cat that lived in the basement, or I could have a cat I who lived with me, so I spent weeks digging her out of her hidey holes and bringing her upstairs to learn that it wasn't scary up here in the sunlight.

I now have a chair no one sits in, because only Sweetie sat there for nine years. I now have beds that no one uses because the remaining three no longer need to go "up" to get away from the crazy. No one meets me at the door like Caleb and Simon did, and no one says good-bye when I leave.

Stress is the cause, if you need a cause. Seven animals who do not get along cannot live in the same tiny space for eight years without consequences. The consequences are cancer, and kidney failure, and inconsolable grief. I wish someone would kill me, too, because I can't self-terminate.

The remaining three have noticed the absences. I don't know if they're talking amongst themselves or not, but I am walking on eggshells, afraid to make any move that might disrupt the current calm and send someone else into a death spiral. I would predict Skamper, except Caleb had no symptoms until he did. I'm frankly afraid to draw close to them, as if my attention will mark them out for annihilation.

It has been 19 days since the first death, and 2 days since Toffee. I'm only just starting to process some of it, in my dreams of all places. Long dead people are visiting me nightly, now that I can sleep more than an hour at a time.

I must adapt. I cannot be Toffee. I cannot live buried in grief or, worse, fearing the next death. Because there will be more death. That's how life works. None of us are getting out alive.

I hope Toffee will forgive me. I hope she is happy now, and her bad wiring has finally been repaired. I hope by writing this I will gain some peace in confession. I promise you, no one can judge me more harshly than I judge myself.

I'm sorry. I hate when people tell me their horror stories just because I have gone through something horrific. As if sharing their pain with me makes my pain less. Why would I feel better because you've also had trouble? What kind of monster do you think I am to rejoice in your grief? Maybe this is one of those normal people things I don't get.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Despise me if you want. I have no defense.

Holes

When people of good heart see someone in pain, they want to do something to help. They want to lend support, bring meals, give hugs or chocolate or both. They want to make the pain stop.

I wish to thank all my friends, family and co-workers - for thinking of me, for praying for me and mine, and for wanting to help.

Like Little Brother, I will repel your advances. I cannot be cuddled. I cannot be gifted out of grief. I will accept chocolate for later, but I have no stomach for it now. I cannot talk about this with you right now. I cannot cry in front of you.

I know this is not typical. Most people seem to find comfort in other people. I assume this is why they marry and have families.

Friendship has a shape. It has weight. It displaces volume. When a friend is ripped away, a hole is left. Nothing but that friend fits that hole. Other friends can gather close and press against that hole, but they don't fill it.

Grief is the process of transferring the shape that used to walk across the bed into a shape that walks across the heart only, until we all meet again on the Last Day.

I am not despairing. I am not contemplating self-harm. I am not cursing God. I am missing my friends.

Thank God grief, even intense grief, cannot be sustained. I will have periods of distress and periods of calm, and one will grow shorter while the other grows longer. Grief comes in like the tide, but it rolls out again, too.

Thank you all for your love. I value it. If you must do something, show love to each other all the more. You never know when a hole will come.

Keep the faith.

Haunted

Not quite a week since Mica took The Long Step. I can't stop thinking about her.

I listen for her. Her constant, nagging, bone-shivering wail ended Tuesday, but I wake up in the middle of the night, straining to hear it.

I pull food out of the refrigerator and cry when I don't have to lock her in the bathroom to keep her from eating it before I can dish it onto my own plate.

I come home and wonder why I don't have to clean up the undigested contents of her ailing stomach.
You might think I should be relieved about all this.

I'm not. Not yet.

You see, I seem to live in a fantasy world where I can heal all hurts and solve all the problems plaguing my charges. I seem to think I have the power to extend life beyond its natural bounds simply because I wish it to be so.

I don't have that power, no matter how much or how often I wish I do.

I can't keep a cat alive. I can't stop death from taking my friends one by one, not even if I had all the money or medicine in the world.

I can't stop missing them when they're gone, even if they are annoying, sickly, or troublesome in their old age.

I loved Mica. She wasn't always troublesome or sick or annoying. We had many good times known only to us.

I'm so sorry, my friend. If I had the power, I would give up some of my life to have kept you here.
You know I would.

Please forgive me.

Please let me go.

Mica

"My heart is filled with silence. My friend stopped running today."

2 Samuel 12:23
See you on the other side, my friend.